


Something New

by LavenderJam



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Affair era, And other parts of their bodies, Experimental Theology, F/M, Melodrama, Oral Sex, Origin Story, Romance, Weddings, meeting of minds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:14:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29226816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LavenderJam/pseuds/LavenderJam
Summary: However, his quest to find this brilliant mind was short-lived, for as soon as he’d resolved to track the man down, a disgruntled voice was disturbing him from the doorway, making it abundantly clear to whom the book belonged.“That’s mine.”Even the irritation soaking her syllables couldn’t hide the lyrical timbre of her voice, and its pitch also scolded him for his assumptions about the elusive scholar’s sex. A retort was forming on his tongue as he raised his eyes, but as he took in the woman standing before him, he could only blink, for he had not been expecting the owner of the voice to be wearing an elaborate satin wedding dress.(How they might have met. Asriel attends the wedding of his old classmate, Edward Coulter.)
Relationships: Lord Asriel/Marisa Coulter
Comments: 14
Kudos: 36





	Something New

**Author's Note:**

> “They fell in love as soon’s they met.” - Northern Lights, Philip Pullman
> 
> “I take thee to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.”
> 
> “Then the bride reappeared at the open Dutch door. She was blonde and good-looking in the virginal wedding white, and she spoke closely with the chef for a few seconds; Bobby suddenly grinned from ear to ear...Soon all of us were peering through the window, where in full view of his assembled crew, Bobby was noisily rear-ending the bride. She was bent obligingly over a fifty-five-gallon drum, her gown hiked up over her hips.” - Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain
> 
> “All the glamour and the trauma,  
> And the fucking melodrama,  
> All the gun fights and the limelights,  
> And the holy sick divine nights,  
> They’ll talk about us, all the lovers,  
> How we kiss and kill each other,  
> They’ll talk about us and discover,  
> How we kissed and killed each other.” - Sober II, Melodrama, Lorde

The marble of the Mayfair suite’s opulent bathroom gleamed as Asriel brought the razor back to his face and sheared off another swathe of stubble. He wouldn’t usually have booked a hotel room for a London wedding, but his chauffeur’s brother – or perhaps his sister or mother, he’d found his attention wandering as soon as Thorold had communicated the situation’s most urgent facts – had been rendered bedridden with pneumonia at the most inopportune of moments, leaving him without a driver for an evening in which he would certainly need someone to aid him into his car and spirit him home once he’d adequately plundered the reception for entertainment. Fussing with a cab in the middle of the night had also seemed like too much trouble. However, a luxury suite at the Dorchester was a worthy solution to his impromptu dilemma, and as he glanced at the elegant clawfoot bathtub in which he’d just enjoyed a pleasant soak and held the lethal edge of his straight razor beneath the stream of water spooling from the solid gold taps, he had to admit that Edward Coulter had better taste than he remembered from their days as schoolboys sharing an Eton dormitory.

“It’s likely the bride’s doing,” Stelmaria said as he wandered back into the suite’s lounge and slipped on his shirt.

“Perhaps that’s a sign of even greater intellect on his part,” Asriel said, knotting his bow tie and slotting his cufflinks through his sleeves. “Binding himself to someone who will make better decisions than he ever could.”

“And that’s why we refuse to marry, I suppose,” Stelmaria said. “For no person could make decisions that you deemed superior to your own.” 

“Precisely,” he said, flashing her grin as he poured himself a glass of the Moët that the suite’s butler had put on ice as soon as he’d been shown to the room.

He hadn’t expected to hear much from Edward Coulter after their Eton days had come to an end, Asriel off to Jordan College, known for its relative creativity, and Coulter off to Cardinal’s College, known for its strict adherence to the twin blights of the law and the Bible. But while Asriel had been charging around the North and gathering fame and fortune that way, Coulter had been rising up the ranks in Westminster, and now had rather enviable sway in the House of Commons. When the invite had arrived, Asriel dropping the sheet of scented card without bothering to read the bride’s name, it had seemed a fairly painless way of maintaining what could become a useful relationship, should Coulter one day reveal some influence or connection or item that Asriel could put to better use for his own ends.

The champagne’s bubbles still tickling the back of his throat, Asriel sauntered down to the hotel’s main lounge, stopping briefly at the reception to request a shoe shine. The room was as lush as his suite: the patterns on the wallpaper were edged with gold leaf, a gleaming grand piano was stationed in one corner, its lacquer so fresh that it could surely be used as a mirror, and the ivory carpets were sprinkled with the sunlight that was dappling through the gossamer curtains. Asriel surveyed the room as he strode over to one of the sofas, and just as he plonked himself down onto the velvet to wait for the boot polisher to arrive, his gaze fell to an item left on the side table: a thick, worn book, its scuffed leather and cracked spine incongruous with the immaculate lounge.

He picked up the tome and scanned the title, his eyebrows raising when he read the familiar phrase. _The Invisible Universe_ was an infamous textbook in the field of experimental theology, the author a student of Rusakov himself, who’d taken up the mantle of continuing the man’s great work after the particle’s namesake had been disappeared by the Magisterium. Of course, it was not long before Ivanov joined his professor on the list of those whose fates will remain unknown for as long as the Magisterium persists, though he’d done a stellar job of disseminating his book across Europe before he’d been captured. Naturally, the Magisterium had destroyed every copy they could find, but Ivanov’s planning was such that many copies were never found. One of these illicit items was in Asriel’s library at home, though the spine was a fraction as creased as the copy he now held in his hands. He let the book fall open and found the margins adorned with notes, reams of perfect cursive decorating the pages, each of Ivanov’s assertions scrutinised fastidiously by the textbook’s owner.

He began to read the added scrawls in earnest, impressed at once by this scholar’s grasp of the material and incisive questions. They’d clearly found Ivanov’s musings on the likelihood that Dust was a supersymmetric particle unconvincing, as made clear by the disparaging comments littering those paragraphs, though they were entranced by the sections examining the relevance of Dust for dæmonological studies, with many passages underlined and short essays of the scholar’s own creation crammed into every blank spot in the book. What thrilled him the most, however, was how often this man’s meditations on theology overlapped with his own theories, each additional sentence more evidence for why Asriel should hunt down the scholar who’d misplaced this book, clap him on the back for his shrewd analysis and offer him a coveted position on Asriel’s upcoming expedition. Mislaying this hallowed artefact would turn out to be this scholar’s most fortuitous error yet.

However, his quest to find this brilliant mind was short-lived, for as soon as he’d resolved to track the man down, a disgruntled voice was disturbing him from the doorway, making it abundantly clear to whom the book belonged.

“That’s mine.”

Even the irritation soaking her syllables couldn’t hide the lyrical timbre of her voice, and its pitch also scolded him for his assumptions about the elusive scholar’s sex. A retort was forming on his tongue as he raised his eyes, but as he took in the woman standing before him, he could only blink, for he had not been expecting the owner of the voice to be wearing an elaborate satin wedding dress.

The dress was long sleeved and high necked, demure and traditional, but fitted enough that the young woman’s svelte form was still highlighted exquisitely, perhaps more so than if her décolletage had been exposed. The white satin was so pure that it was almost blinding, and the full effect was one of disconcerting ethereality, the swathes of white light reminiscent of beings that Asriel had already tried to chase out of his dreams. He wouldn’t usually have spent so long contemplating a stranger’s sartorial choices, even confronted with an outfit as memorable at this, but the scene before him was perhaps his closest brush yet with the disorientation of the uncanny valley, the stunning, scowling woman before him clearly a mere caricature of the innocence she was trying so hard to embody. It was impossible to look away. Stelmaria was having the same experience with her dæmon, his silky fur the colour of a dancing flame, mesmerising and treacherous in equal measure.

Faced with his blank stare, she strode forward and folded her arms across her bust. “When one is caught thumbing through a stranger’s possessions, the standard response tends to be a profuse apology, not a gormless stare.”

Her sharp tone jolted him back to the room, and he resisted the urge to smirk at her sulkiness, which was already far more endearing than it should be. “When one is about to have the priceless possession they so carelessly mislaid returned to them without ransom or rebuke, the standard response tends to be gratitude, rather than infantile petulance. So I suppose we’ve both acted improperly.”

She did her best to keep her face impassive, but her lip twitched and he could see amusement dancing in her eyes. “Shall we try it again, then, hmm?”

At once, her irritation was replaced by a winsome smile and her eyebrows were raised, a pantomime of thankfulness. “Thank you _ever_ so much for retrieving my book. My gratitude is _boundless_.” The words dripped from her lips like honey laced with hemlock. “Now, if you’d be good enough to return it to me. I have an engagement that it really wouldn’t do to be late for.”

He was struck by the image of his old schoolmate jittering at the altar, staring at a doorway that remained empty no matter how desperately he wished for her radiant form to appear in it. To his surprise, Asriel was thrilled by the thought. He expected Stelmaria to shoot him a disapproving look or lash her tail against his ankle as a warning, but she was too spellbound by the golden monkey to notice or care.

He rose to his feet and held the book out to her. She extended one manicured hand towards it, her nails coated in a pearlescent gloss, but just as her fingertips brushed the leather, he snatched it away with a smirk and let the textbook fall lazily open in his hand once more. “But what you failed to account for,” he said, “is that I have little interest in being any less improper.”

His eyes scanned the page. “And based on some of these notes, I’d hazard a guess that neither do you.” He thumbed through the book and smiled as he scanned her most scathing indictments of Ivanov’s theses. “‘Was he deprived of oxygen in the womb?’ is a personal favourite of mine.”

“Those are private,” she said, through gritted teeth.

“Then might I suggest not leaving private musings in a hotel lounge where anybody could stumble upon them, let alone in a banned book?” Her expression became thunderous, though he felt her dæmon shiver pleasurably through Stelmaria’s gaze. “You’re lucky that it was me who found it.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And why is that?”

“Because I happen to be both familiar with the difficulties of publishing controversial material and sympathetic to many of Ivanov’s conclusions.” 

He could see her mind whirring, trying to place him. “Lord Asriel,” he said, extending his hand to her. A flash of recognition appeared in her eyes, and she blinked. He tried not to preen, but a wolfish smile unfurled across his face regardless.

She took his hand in her firm grip, her skin indecently soft against his palm, and between the frisson of their first contact and his lingering conceit and the way her monkey was reaching a tentative paw towards Stelmaria, he found his guard dropping and his focus slipping, the fact his hastening heartbeat was the result of a flirtation with his old friend’s bride conveniently absent from his mind. At once, the monkey’s pleasant stroke became a rough twist of his dæmon’s lustrous fur, and then she yanked him towards her, using his momentary incapacitation to swipe the book from his grasp and back smugly away. The imprint of her fingernails remained briefly visible in the back of his hand, a neat series of crescent moons.

Her dæmon was on her shoulder now, one hand buried in her intricate updo, but his black eyes were still anchored to Stelmaria, whose tail was swishing rhythmically across the carpet. Asriel gave her a wry smile.

“The soon-to-be Mrs Coulter, I presume?” he said, as she tucked the book beneath her arm.

“My, you are astute, aren’t you?” she said dryly, smoothing down the satin skirt of her gown. “What gave it away?”

“Oh, only the regret in your eyes,” he said, trying for humour, but the pitying chuckle she managed to offer in return was accompanied by the straightening of her spine and the loss of colour from her cheeks. Asriel felt emboldened.

She opened her mouth to speak, and he leaned forward slightly, eager to hear her rebuttal, but before she could utter a sound a shrill voice rang out from the lobby, a French twang in the accent. “Marisa!”

She rolled her eyes, offering him a tight smile and turning to leave.

“You’re right, you know,” he said, as she began to walk away. 

She turned. “Excuse me?”

“Page forty-six. Ivanov’s theory about the supersymmetry of Rusakov particles. You’re right about it being baseless. I believe it was a French scientist – Badeux, Bordeaux, something like that – who did the proof. It’s worth a read.”

She gave him a small smile. “Thank you,” she said, and he nodded. They stared at each other for a beat further, both of their brows twitching, each struck by an impossible familiarity that they couldn’t quite bring themselves to shake off. A faint blush appeared on her cheeks.

“Marisa!”

“J’arrive, Maman,” she snapped, spinning on her heel and storming out of the lounge without a glance back at him, though her dæmon held Stelmaria’s gaze for as long as the architecture of the room would allow, the leopard stumbling a few paces forward before Asriel placed a firm hand on her head to stop her.

He’d been considering skipping the ceremony, reasoning that he could use the time to work in his suite and then nip down to the reception when he was ready to be distracted, but now he found himself not only striding towards the church, his unpolished shoes slapping against the paving slabs, but also taking a seat a mere three pews from the front. He expected Stelmaria to scoff at his childishness, grumbling that it was beneath him to debase himself by sprinting towards a church just to get a slightly better view of another man’s bride, but she was even keener than he was to get a decent vantage point for the ceremony, settling herself regally in the aisle as he sat at the edge of the pew, Stelmaria the only dæmon in the room big and imposing enough to require the aisle to accommodate her.

The church was very grand, though he expected nothing less from the haughty, imperious woman he’d met not an hour ago in the Dorchester’s lounge. Coulter was beaming as he stood beside the priest at the altar, exchanging the occasional chuckle with his groomsmen, his eyes bright and cheeks flushed as he looked happily over the growing crowd, his kingfisher dæmon fluttering around his head with glee. Stelmaria growled beneath her breath.

The harsh, brassy tones of the organ rang out through the church and he stood alongside the other guests as Marisa began to glide down the aisle, on the arm of a man far too young to be her father, their matching cheekbones and impassive expressions proof enough for Asriel that this sullen young man had to be her brother. His mind started whirring, each new breadcrumb of information another piece of her puzzle, wondering about her missing father, whether he was dead or merely absent, whether being given away by her dour brother was her idea or the requirement of the woman he’d heard caterwauling back at the hotel. He was still mulling over the possible permutations of her upbringing as she swept past him, her perfume filling his nose, rose and neroli and frankincense, the scent so overwhelmingly sweet he almost choked on it.

His fierce eyes bored into her as she passed, and though her lovely face was now obscured by her veil, he still saw her cheek twitch and a faint shiver shake her shoulder. He was momentarily thrilled to have unsettled her, but she repaid him in kind, as she always would, the feel of her dæmon’s hand lightly caressing Stelmaria’s flank as they slipped past enough to make his smirk falter.

She kissed her brother’s cheek as they reached the altar, the young man holding onto her arm just a fraction too long as she pulled away, his dæmon clearly agitated as they took their place in the front pew and she stood opposite his old classmate, her bridesmaids fanning out her train so that it rippled down the steps like spilled cream. Coulter lifted her veil, and there was even a gasp as she looked out over the crowd, her lips painted the most delicate rose, her cheekbones sporting an iridescent sheen, as if pearls had been crushed into dust and swept across her face. She was beautiful in the way a treasured doll was beautiful, accepting that her role was to be admired from afar, and he could see no remnants of the woman he’d met a mere hour prior, who’d spent the morning of her own wedding reading arcane theology in earnest, and on whose face he’d found a scowl far more compelling than the smile she was clearly forcing now. As the priest began the ceremony, Asriel found himself studying her features, each laugh, each quip, each crystal tear, searching for the woman he’d met as the rest of the congregation bestowed adulation on her ghost.

The service was interminably dull, as he’d known it would be, and as Stelmaria sunk to the floor like a Sphinx and yawned, he chided himself for being so enthralled by a stranger that he’d willingly sat down to listen to a _priest_ waffle on for an hour. She was saying her vows now, Coulter having already choked his way through his, and Asriel was admiring the craftmanship of the stained-glass windows adorning the ambulatory when he felt a sudden sear in his chest, each of Stelmaria’s hairs standing on end. Marisa had just promised not to part from Coulter until death, and while she’d been gazing into his eyes as she did so, her dæmon had obscured himself behind her rich skirt and had locked his eyes to Stelmaria’s, the two dæmons staring at each other, unblinking, as she promised that only death would tear her and Edward Coulter apart. Her dæmon’s dark, piercing gaze almost made it feel like a challenge.

The reception was more tolerable than the ceremony, largely due to the presence of alcohol and the absence of the priest’s drab droning. Asriel was seated on a table with the other old Etonians, and with a glass of champagne in one hand and a pretty bridesmaid flattering him in the other, he almost found himself able to put Marisa Coulter out of his mind for long enough to enjoy the flirtation and the fizz. But then he’d catch sight of her laughing on Coulter’s arm, clasped in his grip on the dancefloor, beaming as he showered her with adoration during his toast, and an unpleasant ache would appear in Asriel’s chest, as if a piece of the pork loin they’d been served for dinner was lodged in his windpipe, too bulky and uncomfortable for any cough to chase away. 

He knew that he should leave, walk away, put her out of his mind and never think of her again, and if he’d only glimpsed her face at the altar then perhaps that would still be possible... but before he’d ever laid eyes on her, before he’d met her gaze and seen his own ruthless hunger looking back, before he’d felt her flirt with destruction as she uttered her wedding vows and adored it, he’d had a window into her mind placed directly into his hands, and he knew now with exhilarating certainty that the way her neurons sparked and pulsed was frighteningly, wonderfully like his own, in a way he could never forgive himself for dismissing, because everything he knew of probability made clear that such magnificent lightning would likely not strike twice. 

His agitation reached a crescendo as the roiling party began to tap forks against flutes, and then Marisa and Edward were kissing and Stelmaria was growling and Asriel was pulling at his collar, in desperate need of some fresh air and an escape from the cloying cacophony of the reception. He paused only long enough to grab a whiskey from the bar and then slipped out into one of the hotel’s lavish hallways, opening door after door until he found a lounge that led to a balcony.

The sun had set by now, but the summer breeze was warm even in the dark, and at once Asriel had slipped off his jacket, ripped off his bow tie and undone several of the buttons of his dress shirt, grumbling to Stelmaria about their unfortunate distance from the far north, as was his favourite pastime whenever he found himself even mildly overheated. He sipped his drink beneath the weak stars and placed his palm on the cool stone of the balcony.

“We shouldn’t go back,” Stelmaria said, resting her head against his hip. “We’re not acting like ourselves.”

He nodded, the thought of gathering his things and hailing a cab back to October House no longer as burdensome as when he’d had Thorold book the room the day before. 

“We should forget her,” Stelmaria continued, her tone forceful, almost angry.

He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and groaned. “I don’t think I can, Stelmaria.”

The snow leopard opened her mouth to respond, but she was distracted by a scent appearing on the breeze, the neroli tangy and metallic as its molecules filled her nose. “Asriel,” she said, nodding towards the doorway.

Their eyes met as soon as she appeared between the open glass doors, her dress gleaming in the soft light, her jewellery twinkling like the stars. Another man might have asked what she was doing there, but he knew exactly why she was there, and he made a point never to ask a question to which he already knew the answer. Instead, he leaned back against the balcony, the hard edge of the stone pressing against his tailbone, and held out his drink to her.

He expected her to take a sip, but to his surprise, she downed the rest of the whiskey in a single gulp and then dropped the glass from the balcony. The sound of the tumbler smashing into a thousand crystal pieces rang out in the otherwise still air, followed by a few shocked shouts from passersby on the street below. She peered down at the chaos and sniggered. 

They looked out over the city, the darkness punctuated by the cold, white gleam of anbaric lights left on in houses and the buttery glow of the sodium-vapour streetlamps. His fingers twitching without his glass to occupy them, Asriel placed his hands on the balcony again, smoothing the rough stone with his thumb. Marisa did the same, the gloss of her sharp nails gleaming, their little fingers scarcely a centimetre apart.

“Why would you marry _him?”_

She laughed, the sound light and musical, like the chime of silver bells. “Because I love him.”

Now it was Asriel’s turn to wheeze; when he laughed, he showed all of his teeth. “Don’t insult me.”

“I wouldn’t _dare_ ,” she drawled. Stelmaria had the monkey cornered on the other side of the balcony, but as the snow leopard darted forward, he leapt gracefully up and began to saunter along the stone.

“Come now. Tell me the truth.”

“Now what would possess me to do that?” 

He studied her. “Because you want to,” he said, after a beat, and to her credit, she held his gaze.

“He’s doing very well for himself, you know,” she said. “His approval ratings have never been higher, and he’s just been appointed an advisor to the king. The youngest ever, I might add.”

“Is that supposed to impress me?” Asriel scoffed. “I’m at the palace every other month for those bloody Cabinet Council meetings. If it was access to the king you wanted, you could have married me.”

She stared at him, considering, scrutinising, and a weaker man would have had to look away. He held her gaze. “You don’t strike me as the type one should wish to marry.”

“Rich, handsome, influential…”

“Arrogant, disrespectful – don’t think I didn’t see you yawning during the ceremony – and happy to while away the evening with someone else’s bride.” 

“You followed me here.”

That made her falter. “You wanted me to follow,” she said, the lilt in her voice replaced with a hard edge, daring him to deny it.

He could have punished her for her misstep, twisted the knife, but artifice wasn’t in his nature. “Of course I did,” he said. “And here you are.”

She looked angry now, her nostrils flaring slightly, her jaw clenched and regal. She really was tremendously beautiful, he thought, and without thinking he reached up to brush his knuckles against her cheek. 

She stepped back and he smirked, unperturbed. “He won’t make you happy.”

“Just as I’m wondering if you might be brilliant, you go and say something idiotic like that. What’s happiness got to do with it?”

She said it with glee, as if proud of her nihilism, but as he stared into her wide, grey eyes, he could see something else swirling there too. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said, and it was his most deft strike yet.

He wasn’t playing her games as she wanted, and he could see that she was infuriated, just as he could also see that each pointed remark was making it harder and harder for her to spin on her heel and leave him. She needed to win, to wrestle the upper hand back from him. He wasn’t going to make easy.

“Don’t pity me,” she sneered.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, with a chuckle. Her dæmon hissed from along the balcony, nimbly swatting away the paw with which Stelmaria was trying to grasp him. “If anyone deserves my pity, it’s him. Does he have any idea what he’s getting himself into?”

She bristled. “He loves me.”

“I’m sure he does.” Asriel leaned forward, expecting her to back away, but she stayed rigid. He could feel her hot breath on his lips. “The parts you’ve let him see, anyhow. Which can’t be all that much, if the woman simpering at the altar was who he anticipated marrying today.”

Her lip twitched, and he wondered if she might spit in his face. His groin pulsed at the thought. Her breast was trembling as he filled as much of her field of vision as he could manage, his lips almost brushing hers. He could practically taste her lipstick by the time she recovered herself and shoved him away, her palms flush against his pectorals.

“Who do you think you are?” she spat, one of her dark curls falling loose from her updo. Asriel wanted nothing more than to wrap it around his index finger and feel the silk of her hair caress the sinews of his hand. “Do you really think so little of me that you expect I’d throw a grenade into my life on a whim, in the first minutes of my marriage, no less?”

“I assure you that I could not think more of you,” he said honestly, and that only seemed to make her angrier.

She turned around, her fists clenched, clearly forcing herself to take deep breaths. He considered wrapping an arm around her, but after glancing over the balcony and noting the distance to the street beneath, thought better of it. By the time she’d turned back to him, she’d managed to wrangle her expression back to its neutral position, cool and impassive. “I should get back.”

“Yes, you should.”

She didn’t move. “Go on,” he said, goading her. “Go back inside, go back to your _husband._ Dance and drink and be merry, whatever it takes for you to forget that you’d rather be out here with me.”

“Do you want me to forget that?”

“No.”

Each sharp shot of honesty seemed to animate her. She nodded, her cheekbones reflecting the bitter gleam of the moon.

An uncertain silence hung between them as they stood on the balcony. Asriel busied himself identifying constellations in the sky above, waiting to hear the traitorous click of her heels as she marched away. But no such sound reached his ears. His candour was unsettling her, he knew, and as the moments dripped on, he could almost hear the cogs in her brain clicking and whirring, her adept mind recalibrating, examining him, taking what she could intuit of him apart and figuring out where best to train her own missile.

When he looked back, she was closer to him, a sly grin on her face, and her dæmon was stroking Stelmaria’s barbarous jaws. Asriel couldn’t stop his eyes from drifting closed, and he knew at once what she was about to try. “Run along,” he said, sending instructions to Stelmaria to shake off the monkey, which she ignored. “Run back to him.”

She was standing before him now, the soft light from the hotel lounge turning her into an exquisite silhouette, a dark shadow that the light could only attempt to engulf, but never permeate. “But what if I want to stay here with you?” she said, and her sugared tone had him immediately on edge. 

“Then I’d say you were a deviant. What sort of woman - ”

“Would that bother you?”

He stifled a grunt as the monkey massaged his dæmon. “You said you wouldn’t insult me.” 

She stepped forward into his arms, her breasts pressed against his chest. He brought his hands up and stroked the graceful curves of her shoulder blades. He felt himself stiffen, and from the grin she gave him, she must have felt it too. “Marisa – ” he started to say, not because of some childish sense of morality or restraint, but because he knew he should be wary of what she planned to do after she’d had him by the balls, but then he felt the monkey dig his dexterous black fingers into Stelmaria’s fur, and both man and snow leopard could do nothing but groan with pleasure.

She unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his trousers, sinking to her knees on the stone balcony, her dress gathering around her like she was perched on a cloud. He was powerless to resist, as he had been from the moment she’d materialised before him in the lounge that afternoon, at once both a second and a lifetime ago. He’d assumed that her youth, the sense of propriety she clearly forced herself to abide by, the fact that her husband was likely searching for her down the hall, would make it simple for him to retain the higher ground, but as he felt the searing, wet heat of her mouth surround him, he realised that she’d perhaps been playing the more skilful game all along, weaving her web around him until she could do something like this, so flagrantly, brilliantly sinful, in complete confidence that he wouldn’t use this stark example of depravity to manipulate her, torture her, ruin her, because then she’d be lost to him forever, which was already an injury he’d do anything to avoid. 

She engulfed him like a red tide, one hand clasped around the base of his erection and stroking him in time with her mouth, the other massaging his thigh for balance. She sucked his swollen tip until he moaned, and then just as his cock was quivering she tucked him into the back of her throat, until his glans was nudging her soft palate. Each tremble and ragged breath only seemed to spur her on, and then she was swallowing him ferociously, drenching him in her salacious saliva, the sight of her divine lips ringing him almost too erotic to stand. He reached down and dug his fingers into her hair, hoping to wrestle control back from her and impose a rhythm that left him feeling less at the mercy of the black hole of her throat, but as soon as his fingertips brushed her glinting hairpins she froze, the sharp points of her canines suddenly pressing against his shaft.

He sighed and pulled his hands away, her hairstyle undisturbed. She resumed pleasuring him at once, and he anchored his hands to the balcony in a desperate bid to keep her teeth from clamping down against him, his knuckles flashing the same pure white as her dress as he gripped the stone with force.

She fucked him with her face and it was glorious. Desire was coiling in his abdomen and his thighs were shaking and then he was grinning, letting out an ecstatic moan that was carried on the cool wafts of the evening wind. She glanced up at him and him down at her, his cock buried so deep in her mouth that perfect crystal tears were gathering in her eyes, the mere thought of which was enough to drive his mind wonderfully, unsettlingly blank, as if he was falling towards the ground and shattering into a thousand pieces, the fragments of which he then spilled roughly down her throat until she choked.

She drank everything he had to offer, sucking on him as he went soft, her hands stroking the outside of his thighs in a manner that could almost be called tender. He scrubbed his hands over his face and laughed.

She wiped the corners of her mouth with her sleeve as he tucked himself away, and then he pulled her to her feet and back into his arms. To his chagrin, she resisted.

He’d expected her to look thrilled: if she’d wanted to prove that he was at her mercy, that he could no more resist her than she could hide from him, then that performance had been a rousing success. But her eyes were wide with shock and she was shaking her head, as if in disbelief, as if just realising that her tacit attempt to best him had only ensured that they both were lost. She started to back away. Her lips were still slick with their mingled moisture. No doubt she could still taste him on her tongue.

She turned as if to flee, but the monkey was still swooning between Stelmaria’s paws, and Asriel had grabbed her hand before she could disappear into the harsh light of the lounge.

“Don’t,” she said, a plea. He twirled her deftly into his arms and captured her lips with his.

Their tongues entwined with a tortured urgency; a vital transfusion delivered just in time. She fisted her hands in his shirt while his fingers dusted the strong muscles of her back, marvelling at how new terrain could feel so wonderfully, magnetically familiar, a beloved path through an otherwise barren wood. It felt like less like meeting than a miraculous discovery, an apple falling on a head, the fundamental laws that governed their universe suddenly clear and bright as day. 

She tore her lips from his and pressed their foreheads together, the both of them panting. If someone had snapped a photogram of this moment, it would have looked to all the world like she was his bride, like they’d just promised themselves to each other for eternity. “I feel like I’ve known you for a thousand lifetimes,” she said, and he clasped her tighter. “How is that possible?”

For perhaps the first time in his life, he found himself speechless, for he felt the same, and could offer her no explanation that wasn’t absurd or humiliating or both. “I don’t know,” he murmured, nuzzling his nose into her hair.

“I wish we’d never met,” she said, her voice choked. “I think I might despise you.”

He shook his head. “What you’re feeling is something quite different, my dear,” he said, and then they were kissing again, their dæmons stroking each other’s faces reverently, soaking up every inch of the other and committing them to memory forever.

“Come away with me,” he said. “We could be on the continent by morning. North by afternoon. Or Africa, the Indies, wherever you desire.”

She blinked. “No,” she said, as if she hadn’t expected him to say that at all. “God, Asriel, you can’t really think – ” she said, but before she could finish her sentence another voice rang out.

“Marisa?”

It was muffled enough that Coulter was still clearly in the hallway, but that didn’t temper Marisa’s response. Her eyes widened and she gasped, then she snatched the monkey from Stelmaria’s arms, ignoring her growl, and rushed towards the door.

“Marisa,” he hissed, and his heart was thudding as she turned back.

“Asriel, please,” she said, a harsh crack in her otherwise mellifluous voice.

“Marisa?” Coulter called again from the hallway.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and then she fled.

Stelmaria padded over to him, their chests both heaving. “Fucking hell,” he said to his dæmon, leaning back against the stone railing and pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes.

He considered leaving then, striding out into the night and sending a courier for his belongings in the morning, but he couldn’t leave without knowing when he’d see her next. He rebuttoned his shirt and retied his bow tie and slipped on his dinner jacket, and then headed back to the ballroom.

The pealing laughter and clinking glasses and clattering shoes had his head throbbing within seconds of returning to the room. He could have sworn that the throng of guests had multiplied in the time that they’d been gone, which could have been an hour or a day or a lifetime, he didn’t know, time might as well have been frozen in that moment, the world holding its breath as the course of his life changed forever.

It didn’t take long for him to spot her on the other side of the room, Edward’s arm hooked around her waist as they conversed with their guests, a glass of champagne in her hand. He blinked at the force of anger that bloomed in his chest. It almost felt like he’d stepped into another world, a dark and twisted parallel universe in which this wedding was a cruel hallucination; his own lover on the arm of another, bound to him with only death to free her.

He prowled over, Stelmaria’s unwavering steps parting the crowd like she was a staff and the reception a sea of red. Marisa gave a subtle shake of the head when their eyes met, but he ignored her, and before she could take more drastic action to remove Coulter from the path of Asriel’s ambition, her new husband had noticed his old friend and called out. “Asriel! You came!”

He let his eyes flick briefly to Marisa’s before he offered Coulter a smile. “I most certainly did,” he said, and the monkey began to chitter.

“Have you met Marisa?” Coulter said, and Asriel just managed to stifle his smirk.

“I don’t believe so.” He felt the glare she gave him in his groin.

Coulter looked thrilled as he made the introduction. “Well, this is my _wife_ ,” he said gleefully, and Asriel imagined briefly what it would feel like to kill him. He pictured his eyes empty and dulled, his sweet red cheeks drained of their lively hue, his grey matter spattered on Asriel’s expensive leather shoes. “Marisa Coulter. Marisa, this is Lord Asriel. We were at Eton together.”

“A pleasure,” she said tightly. “Darling, you’ll have to excuse me, I’ve just seen – ”

“Don’t let me keep you,” Asriel interrupted. “I’m just leaving.”

“Oh?” she said, raising an eyebrow, at the same time that Coulter said, “So soon?”

“This blasted paper won’t write itself. But congratulations on a delightful evening. I presume the honeymoon will be similarly lavish?”

Her eyes brightened as his true motivation revealed itself. “Naturally. We’re flying to Paris in the morning.”

“Wonderful. I do hope you’re treating her to at least two weeks, Coulter. You need at least that much time to appreciate the city.”

“My thoughts exactly,” he said, giving his wife a fond look. “But alas, ten days is all we’ll manage. Marisa has insisted on returning for the start of a lecture series – what was it, dear?”

“The Selwyn Lectures,” she said. “They really are the most fascinating presentations. I refuse to miss a single one. I’ll be there every week through the autumn.”

“Is that right?” he murmured. Warmth suffused his chest as understanding flowed between them, a sizzling golden current, and he placed his hand on Stelmaria’s head to stop her lunging forward. 

Someone called Marisa’s name from across the dancefloor. “Darling, I really should – ”

“Go, go,” he said, waving her away. She kissed her husband’s cheek and gave Asriel a polite nod, letting her dark eyes linger on his for just a fraction of a second too long before sweeping away in a haze of smooth satin. If anyone had been looking, they’d have realised that the two men had the same soft expression on their faces as they watched her slip away.

“Congratulations,” Asriel said, the fresh pity making it easier to feign disinterest. “She’s quite something.”

“Isn’t she exquisite?” Coulter said dreamily. “Between you and me, Asriel, it still seems too good to be true.”

He offered him a bland smile in return. “I should be going,” he said, clapping his old friend on the shoulder. He turned to walk away and then whipped back around. “Truly, Coulter, I wish you a long and happy life together,” he said, and he made it halfway across the ballroom before starting to laugh, his teeth gleaming as he felt the world crack open before him.

**Author's Note:**

> She didn’t even make it one day, huh? Ha. I just thought this was a funny idea, and a fun story for how they might have met. Please let me know what you think, it really makes my day. 
> 
> Also, if this got you in the mood for Masriel origin stories, my fic Forbidden Fruit is an alternate conception of their first meeting, which involves a dinner party and desk sex and voyeurism. Would recommend, ahem.


End file.
